Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Urge to carry out female genital mutilation still strong among women who moved to Sweden from African and Middle East countries. A third say they must do it for family honor. A mother traveled to London to ensure her daughter was mutilated despite knowing it was illegal in London-Dagens Nyheter, Sweden, June 2014

The researchers have interviewed eightwomen originating in Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti and Eritrea.One of the women was born here while the others have lived in Sweden for between 13 and 20 years.
Everyone finds that the pressure to circumcise daughters is extremely
strong, and believe that one third of the families whose background is
in countries where circumcision is the norm intends to carry out the
intervention on their own girls."It is part of the culture of honor.
The women indicate the importance of continuing circumcision to insure
the virgin's virginity, thereby securing the family's honor," says Vanja
Berggren, one of the authors of the study. Several of the women say they are experiencing an inner conflict and mean that they do not really want to continue with the custom.

The pressure is perceived as strongest when the family visits the home country during the vacation.Some parents feel worried that relatives will take the daughter to a circumcision without knowing about it. How the women plan to carry out the surgery are not shown by the study. But a woman stated that she had traveled to London to circumcise her daughter, despite being illegal in Britain too. According to Vanja Berggren, more information is required from the authorities. - A woman had lived in Sweden for 20 years before she found out that circumcision was illegal three years ago. Vanja Berggren is involved in the
Ministry of Education's investigation of how school staff should handle
pupils who have become or at risk of being genital mutilated.
The investigators will recommend the authorities to publish more
information about Swedish legislation before the summer vacation.
One suggestion is that everyone will be able to download a certificate
of law, which they can then show to their relatives in their home
country.As it is now, the silence around the question is the biggest threat to all the girls in the risk zone, she believes. Karolinska institute's study "Perceptions and experiences of female genital mutilation after immigration to Sweden: an explorative study" was published in 2013.
"There is no statistical study, but the result indicates that this is
an issue that is important to continue exploring in Sweden."